Eating habits

I wake to the smell of my band mates' farts. We live on a bus. We're travelling from LA to Tucson and have stopped at the Grand Canyon. The Bright Angel Lodge is made of logs stacked on the edge. "Are the portions big?" I ask. We're in America. It's a stupid question. "Everything's as big as the canyon."

Kelly Clarkson is on the radio. Our pints of mud-brown Colorado Fat Tyre taste of Cadbury's chocolate and smell of Kraft cheese. Everyone is moaning about dry throats from the ubiquitous air conditioning. A flight attendant suggested to Andy that he hang a wet towel over the back of a chair. "It was sopping wet when I hung it up, bone dry in the morning." Paul reckons he wouldn't be able to sleep for wondering whether it was dry yet. Then he yells. Boiling cream cheese from a deep-fried Jalapeno has landed on his lap.

I eat with these guys every day. Their eating habits are as familiar as the songs we play at night. Paul always covers his plate with a napkin when he's had enough. It's as if he's laying a sheet over a half-eaten corpse. Nick is oblivious to waiters. They stand at his elbow until somebody nudges him to point them out. He then looks startled, as if waking from a coma; confused to find himself in a restaurant. Whenever Bob takes a drink he has to push his upper lip back from his teeth with the rim of the glass. He shakes his fork between bites. Eating also involves triangles in some way, but I've never quite worked out how. Andy tends to stare at his plate, grey with anxiety, worrying about how the foreign stuff will poison him this time. Apparently I chew too much and frown when I'm enjoying food.

When New Order toured, Bernard Sumner wanted to kill Peter Hook because of the way he licked his fingers after eating a packet of crisps. None of our habits seem that annoying. Yet. We've only been touring for two-and-a-half years.

My Wrangler's Chilli sits rigid with salt in a novelty bowl hollowed out from a bread bun. Dire Straits' Walk of Life is on the radio. Bob pushes his lip back. Paul reaches for his napkin. Andy stares at his plate. Nick doesn't notice the waiter. I don't frown.